The present invention relates to a lever particularly usable in ski boots.
Currently, in ski boots it is known to use many types of lever for applying tension to traction elements, such as cables or bands, that allow for example to secure the flaps of a quarter or of a shell.
Conventional levers are usually constituted by a lever arm which is pivoted, at one end, at a pair of shoulders protruding from a base which is in turn rigidly coupled at the shell or at the quarter.
These conventional levers have drawbacks: since the lever arm is subject to accidental impacts during sports practice and especially during breaks, when one walks with the boot open and thus with the lever arm raised, deformations are imparted to the shoulders of the base as a consequence of these impacts; consequently the need arises to replace the entire lever-base assembly.
Furthermore, the use of a base entails additional costs due both to the component and to the production step required to couple it to the quarter or to the shell and to pivot it to the lever arm.
French patent no. 2,450,575 is known as a partial solution to these drawbacks; it discloses a lever device for locking and/or securing a ski boot, which has multiple profiles that form a rack and are orientated along the longitudinal axis. The profiles are arranged between two retention bars which have longitudinal openings at which a cable is passed; said cable can be manually made to interact at the required point of the rack.
One end of the lever arm can be arranged at a desired point formed to the rear of the quarter.
Although this solution eliminates the use of a base with its associated shoulders for the pivoting of the lever arm, drawbacks are still observed: in fact, once the skier has opened the lever arm, thus disengaging it from the quarter, said lever arm dangles to the rear of the boot and can assume random positions due to the loosening of the cable.
Thus, on one hand the lever arm interacts with the ground, for example while walking, so that the risk of impact and breakage is not fully eliminated; on the other hand its random arrangement can make the skier tend to close it in an incorrect position or can force him to otherwise restore the correct position for said lever, all this constituting an undoubtedly awkward operation, since it forces the skier to visually check an element located to the rear of the boot.
Furthermore, the cable must be arranged at the rack manually by the skier, and this is certainly not an easy operation.